Time stands still ... on Herbert Street you'll find the Gulgong Pioneers Museum.Credit: Lee Atkinson
Gold-rush towns, galleries and echoes of the King lure Lee Atkinson away from the Mudgee wine trail.
FROM where I'm standing, the busiest intersection in the world is rather deserted. The Greatest Wonder of the World seems to be nothing but a pile of junk half-hidden behind boarded-up windows and the only fancy goods for sale at the Fancy Goods Emporium are some wedding cakes in the window.
Things have certainly changed since visiting English writer Anthony Trollope looked over the balcony of one of the pubs on the corner of Mayne and Herbert streets in Gulgong and declared with amazement that "surely this would have to be the busiest intersection in the world".
Of course, that was during the height of the gold rush in the 1870s, when Gulgong had 67 pubs (it now has four), was home to about 25,000 people (now fewer than 2000), the Greatest Wonder of the World imported men's clothing and boots and the town boasted an opera house that attracted stars such as Dame Nellie Melba. Actually, the opera house is still going strong and most of the buildings that graced the main street in the 1870s are still standing, including the pubs with their overhanging verandahs on the corner of Mayne and Herbert. When you look at it that way, not much has changed in Gulgong at all. Some perfectly preserved historical towns can look and feel like a theme park but in the old half-forgotten gold rush towns of NSW, such as Gulgong, the past doesn't seem like such a different place, as I discovered on a five-day driving loop of the central west.
Of the buildings in Gulgong, 130 are listed by the National Trust and, wandering down crooked Mayne Street, it feels as if we have slipped back in time. Just how little has changed in the past 140 years becomes clear when we see the photographs of Charles Bayliss and Beaufoy Merlin inside the Gulgong Pioneers Museum. These photographs, known as the Holtermann Collection, comprise more than 500 original negatives taken in Gulgong and nearby Hill End at the height of the gold rush in 1872 and, apart from the fashions and the traffic, they could have been taken last week.
We'd been stuck in this time warp from pretty much the moment we crossed the Blue Mountains, where we'd stopped to stretch our legs in Hartley, one of the first colonial settlements west of the great divide. The village was settled in 1837 when the rather grand sandstone courthouse was built as a police centre. The Bathurst gold rush of the 1850s brought lots of business and Hartley became a bustling judicial and administrative centre. The site is now an official historic site and is managed by National Parks.
Our next stop, equally tiny and just-as-deserted Lue, was little more than a pub, an old butcher's shop that looked as if it hadn't sold anything in decades and a grand train station in front of tracks that only went as far as the end of the platform.
We hadn't set out to travel back in time this way. The original plan was for a day or two of wine tasting and eating out in Mudgee, before heading south-west to do much the same thing in Cowra. But we'd got distracted along the way, caught up in history in places such as Gulgong and Sofala, which claims to be the oldest surviving gold town in Australia, dating from May 1851. The main street once stretched for 16 kilometres and the population numbered in the tens of thousands; today it's a collection of tumbledown cottages so perfectly mid-19th century they could double as a film set, only grimier.
But it's not just the history that distracted us. In Wellington, we spend an hour or two underground exploring limestone caves and marvelling at the world's largest stalagmite and ancient megafauna bones; in Parkes we get lost in space watching 3D movies at the giant telescope famous for its role in relaying Apollo 11 television pictures from the moon in 1969 and made famous again in the 2000 movie The Dish.
We slip into another universe completely at Parkes, which, even though it looks like a pretty normal country town, is the "Elvis capital of Australia". Here, during the second week of January, thousands of Elvis impersonators descend on the town for the annual five-day Elvis Festival. We're here in June, though, so you'd think we'd be safe, but the Elvis mania is contagious and we know it's time to move on when we find ourselves seriously, if only for a moment, contemplating shelling out $75 for a piece (not a lock) of Elvis's hair at the King's Castle, a million-dollar collection of Presley memorabilia amassed by Greg Page, the former yellow Wiggle.
Construction is under way on the new Parkes Museum next door, which will house Page's collection, including one of the rocker's Cadillacs, when it opens later this year. For now, the collection, which has more than 100 items on display (but not the Caddy), includes some serious diamond-encrusted bling and lots of movie and stage clothing, such as a fabulous white leather suit decorated with hand-painted flowers (much smaller than you'd think - Elvis was surprisingly slender even in 1974) and equally fabulous gold lame jacket.
Elvis must have lost a lot of hair, because there are 5000 hairs in the limited-edition run (protected in a plastic box with a note certifying their authenticity - straight from his stylist's comb to you!) and the enthusiastic volunteer guide at the museum on the day we visit, John Dean, says they are in big demand. "I've sold quite a few," he says. "One lady told me she wants to be buried with it."
In Cowra, instead of visiting wineries, we wander around the Japanese garden, the largest in the southern hemisphere. Cowra's claim to fame is the largest jail breakout ever, when 1000 Japanese prisoners of war tried to escape from a camp on the edge of town in 1944. Of the prisoners, 231 were killed, along with four Australian soldiers, and the incident led to the creation of Australia's only Japanese war cemetery as well as the gardens in a symbol of friendship.
The time warp trip continues 20 minutes down the road at Canowindra with its verandah-lined main street, where we spend a couple of hours browsing the galleries and boutiques before making a beeline to Mudgee to finish off the loop.
Time hasn't stood quite so still in Mudgee, particularly in the past decade or two as the town has morphed from sleepy rural centre to tourist weekend-getaway spot.
The grand old buildings are still there on the two main streets but most of them are now home to boutiques and rustically fitted-out shops selling ersatz country furnishings to city slickers who come to Mudgee to spend a weekend shopping, sipping their way around the 40 or so wineries with cellar doors or grazing at the dozens of cafes, bistros, restaurants and wine bars.
Not that there's anything wrong with that - it's exactly what we were there for.
The writer was a guest of Tourism NSW and Mudgee Region Tourism.
Trip notes
Getting there
Mudgee is a 3½-hour drive (261km) west of Sydney. Gulgong is 28km north of Mudgee. This driving loop from Gulgong to Mudgee, via Parkes and Cowra, is about 525km.
Staying there
The Prince of Wales Hotel is one of Gulgong's oldest. New motel-style units cost $97 a double a night. 97 Mayne Street, Gulgong. (02) 6374 1166, www.princeofwalesgulgong.com.au
In Cowra, the two-bedroom cottage Tinnies costs $140 a night. Chiverton Road, Cowra. (02) 6342 9251, tinniesatbackcreekvineyard.com.au.
The rooms in the Station Motel in Parkes are decorated with abstract images of Elvis in concert; rooms start at $115 a night. 82 Peak Hill Road (Newell Highway), Parkes. (02) 6862 8444, stationhotels.com.au.
In Mudgee, rooms in the newly renovated three-bedroom Californian bungalow called A Market Place start at $101 a double, midweek. 18 Market Street, Mudgee. (02) 6372 2437.
See + do
Gulgong Pioneers Museum, open daily. Adults $10.73 Herbert Street, Gulgong.
Wellington Caves are open daily and tours leave at regular intervals. Tickets $10-$16.50. visitwellington.com.au.
The visitor centre at Parkes Telescope (20km north of Parkes on the Newell Highway) is free, 3D movies cost $6.50 for adults, $5 for kids. Open daily 8.30am-4.15pm. outreach.atnf.csiro.au.
The King's Castle is on Peak Hill Road, Parkes. Open Monday-Friday, 9.30am-3.30pm. Entry is $5, kids under 12 free.
The Japanese garden and cultural centre in Cowra costs $10 for adults, $6 for kids and is open daily, 8.30am-5pm. cowraregion.com.au/japanesegarden/.
More information
Three (other) things to do
1: Cudgegong Gallery In potter's circles, Gulgong is famous for its kaolin clay. This gallery is dedicated to ceramic art and features local and international artists' work, with four annual exhibitions. Open daily, 10am-5pm. Free entry. 102 Herbert Street, Gulgong. cudgegonggallery.com.au.
2: Henry Lawson Centre Writer and poet Henry Lawson lived much of his early life in Mudgee and Gulgong. This museum has the largest collection of Lawson material outside the Mitchell Library in Sydney. Open Monday-Saturday, 10am-3.30pm, Sunday, 10am-1pm. Adults $5, concessions $3. 149 Mayne Street, Gulgong. henrylawsongulgong.org.au.
3: Age of Fishes Museum 360 million years ago, the central west was home to bizarre fish with armour and lungs, and this museum has the fossils to prove it. Open daily, 10am-4pm. Adults $7.70, concessions $5.50. Corner Gaskill & Ferguson streets, Canowindra. ageoffishes.org.au.
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